The author: Julie Tollefson is managing editor at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. This article originally appeared in the September 1998 issue of Strategram, a newsletter for SIM teachers.
Floyd Hudson, who has devoted the last 30 years to the field of learning disabilities, sees changes on the horizon for special educators.
"I am convinced that the future for us is in instructional delivery, not curriculum content," said Hudson, professor of special education in the Department of Special Education at the University of Kansas. "The other direction we're going to see much more of is co-teaching."
Hudson expanded on these two points and others related to the future of special education during an address to members of the International SIM Trainers' Network in July.
The concept of co-teaching is very familiar to Hudson, who is the originator of one of the oldest and largest inclusion programs in the country. In fact, co-teaching is central to his Class-within-a-Class program. In this program, general education and special education teachers work together in the general education classroom.
"The emphasis is on teaching kids how to learn," Hudson said. The use of learning strategies and Content Enhancement Routines reinforces that goal.
Several supports must be in place for the Class-within-a-Class program to be successful, but perhaps the most important one is for teachers to be allowed time to plan together. During co-planning, teachers must analyze the curriculum demands for the class and determine the learning needs that must be addressed for students to be successful. Then, the special education and general education teachers engage in a parallel teaching approach in which the general education teacher provides the content and the special education teacher ties in the strategies that fit the learning needs of the students.
This approach can be especially difficult at the secondary level for a couple of reasons. First, co-planning time is hard to come by.
"Sometimes, planning time is more important than co-teaching because without the plan, you have no direction," Hudson said.
Schools can overcome this difficulty with a little bit of flexible thinking. Hudson listed several examples of creative solutions to the planning time crunch problem:
This kind of flexible thinking allows special education and general education teachers to spend the necessary time working together to build an effective teaching relationship.
A second obstacle to the parallel teaching approach at the secondary level is that individual courses are driven by content, and general education teachers are viewed as content specialists. This creates a situation governed by the assumption that teachers can't teach at this level if they don't know the content.
"But I don't have to know anything about your content to support you," Hudson responds. "I don't have to know your content to do tandem teaching."
Special education teachers can support the learning needs of students in general education classes through mediation and the use of graphic organizers and Content Enhancement Routines.
"I can teach strategies," Hudson said. "I don't have to know who discovered America because I get that from you. We are teachers of instructional strategies."
In this mindset, the special education teacher's role is to bring expertise about learning and about how instructional delivery can affect learning to the partnership with the general education teacher.
Another trend Hudson addressed is the move away from special education and general education as separate fields and toward a unified field called education. Unification raises fears among some special educators, he said, especially those who remember the old days when the two fields were not separated and funds were not available for special education services.
Hudson, however, hopes unification will strengthen the ownership teachers feel for the success of students. Too many times, he said, when a student has a problem in a general education class, the special education area is called on to solve it. In a unified system, general educators may feel more of a joint responsibility to help solve the problems, he said.
Although Hudson is firm in his belief that inclusion programs such as Class-within-a-Class are beneficial for students, he is adamant that the education community must be responsible in its inclusion efforts. Hudson noted that educators have known since the 1950s that youngsters learn best when they can learn from other students. However, he said, it is not responsible to automatically place all students in the general education classroom without making other options available. Rather, responsible inclusion means working to decide what really is the best practice for students. Responsible inclusion embodies several components that facilitate special education teachers and general education teachers working together to meet students' needs:
Responsible inclusion requires administrative support as well as a sense of ownership among team members. Overall, responsible inclusion means focusing on what's best for students as individuals.
"That's what this is all about. It was never about groups," Hudson said. "You have to give every kid a consideration based on his individual needs."
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